Cost per lead is on the invoice; cost per funded deal is the number that decides whether the invoice was a good idea. The gap between them is the funded rate, and it varies enough between lead types to reverse the ranking entirely.
What we actually see: clients paying $60 a lead land at $1,000 to $1,500 per funded deal fairly consistently. At $1,000 a deal is comfortably in the safe zone; some have pushed it to $2,500 on larger files and still made it work, because the return calculation holds. It is also the last of the six numbers an ad account is managed on, and the only one that pays. The bars below are the arithmetic behind the range.
The same $3,000 order, at four different funded rates. We plan against the third row because it is the bottom of the benchmark clients report, and a lead source that only works at the top of its range does not work.
Funded rates are client-reported; the arithmetic is ours.
Setting your own ceiling
- Start with your real average funded advance over six months, not your best month.
- Multiply by your actual points after any ISO split — the number you bank, not the headline.
- Take a fifth to a third of that as your maximum total acquisition cost per funded deal.
- Divide by the funded rate you expect from the leads to get a maximum per-lead price.
- Anything under that works. Anything over needs a better funded rate to justify it.
Count the whole cost
Cost per funded deal is not only the lead spend. Rep time on the dials, the CRM, the dialler and the scrub all belong in it, and they are what make cheap high-volume leads more expensive than they look. A shop comparing $60 exclusive against $15 shared on the invoice alone is comparing two numbers that do not describe the same amount of work.
Questions brokers ask
What is a good cost per funded deal in MCA?
A fifth to a third of your gross commission on the deal. At a $62,000 average advance and ten points that is roughly $1,200 to $2,000, and a $60 exclusive lead at the benchmark funded rate lands around $750 to $1,500.
How do you calculate cost per funded deal?
Total acquisition spend on a batch divided by the deals that funded from it — including rep time, dialler and scrub costs, not just the lead invoice. Judge it across several orders rather than on one.
Should you plan against your best funded rate?
No. Plan against the bottom of your range. A lead source that only clears your ceiling at its best outcome is a source that will fail in an ordinary month, which is most months.
What matters more, lead price or deal size?
Deal size, by several times. Ten dollars a lead is $500 on an order of fifty; moving your average advance from $45,000 to $62,000 is worth about $1,700 per funded deal at ten points.
Does rep time belong in the calculation?
Yes, and leaving it out is what makes high-volume cheap leads look better than they are. Two hundred dials and fifty dials are not the same cost even when the invoice says they are.
Alex Makowski
Founder, Infinite Bookings
Runs the lead generation operation behind Infinite Bookings — paid traffic, the funding application, and the delivery pipeline that puts records into brokers’ CRMs.
Reachable directly at alex@infinitebookings.com or 732-609-7182.